


Train

by DictionaryWrites2



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anniversary, Babies, Cute, Domestic, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-07 02:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18864079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites2/pseuds/DictionaryWrites2
Summary: Behind them, Crowley heard the door shift open, and he blinked as he heard the wailing scream of a baby fill the carriage, turning to look. There was a harried, exhausted young woman holding the baby in her arms, rocking it with desperate movements and speaking softly but with an edge of hysteria to it.Poor girl.





	Train

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnnetheCatDetective](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/gifts).



“I’m not saying I don’t like trains, I’m just saying—”

“I know what you’re saying.”

“It’s just not the same as when we could—”

“Angel, if you mention Blandford Forum one more time—”

“But I _liked_ —”

“I know you liked it! Blandford Forum is still _there_ , angel, we just drive instead of—”

“It’s not the same _driving_ , I want to go on the _train_ —”

“Well, you can’t! They’ve no station!”

Aziraphale, in seat across from Crowley on the train, set his arms over his chest, crossing them tightly and giving Crowley a very cold look. Crowley faltered, and he leaned forward, his elbows on the table and his hands brushing against the tawny fabric of Aziraphale’s cardigan as he touched the angel’s arms placatingly.

“Sorry,” Crowley said. “I just… We have that argument a lot. I didn’t want them to close that station either.”

Aziraphale’s sour expression softens somewhat, and he untucks one arm from the other, catching Crowley’s hands and interlinking their fingers. It was nice, taking the train – it was late evening, now, and they’d get a spot of something to eat in Paris before they made their way onward.

It was so… _romantic_.

“You are _sure_?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley brought one of Aziraphale’s hands up to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the back of it and dragging his lips back and forth over the soft flesh of his knuckles.

“Angel, I’m sure,” Crowley murmured softly. The Eurostar was strangely empty, tonight, and they were alone in the carriage, but neither of them minded… Once they got to Paris, Crowley would let Aziraphale pick one of the long train journeys, and off they would go. It would be just like it used to be – travelling in luxury, eating in the restaurant car of the train—

Yes.

Oh, yes.

Behind them, Crowley heard the door shift open, and he blinked as he heard the wailing scream of a baby fill the carriage, turning to look. There was a harried, exhausted young woman holding the baby in her arms, rocking it with desperate movements and speaking softly but with an edge of hysteria to it.

Poor girl.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, disentangling his fingers, and Crowley watched as he stood up from the chair. “My dear, are you alright?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said desperately, looking at Aziraphale with wide, tearful eyes. “Oh, I thought this was empty— Oh, please, Harry, _please_ stop crying—” Harry was not, it seemed, interested in stopping any time soon. He bawled and sobbed and screamed in his swaddling clothes, apparently ready to go until he was blue in the face.

“May I?” Aziraphale said gently, over the din.

People trusted Aziraphale. It was a natural, uncanny instinct, but they trusted him, trusted his comfortable, soft aura, his gentle warmth. It was all bollocks, of course – Crowley knew better than anybody how _antisocial_ and _arsey_ Aziraphale could be, how _angelic_ , but… Well, when he wanted to be nice, people saw nice.

The woman handed over the little ball of screaming blankets that she’d called Harry, and Aziraphale took him gently in his arms.

“Hello, young man,” Aziraphale said softly, and abruptly, Harry stopped screaming. Crowley felt his ears ring with the sudden absence of noise. Babies liked him too, of course. Babies just _loved_ Aziraphale. Crowley, they were alright, they were normal enough, but Aziraphale… He was just baby catnip. “Oh, you poor dear. Aren’t you a beautiful little child, hm? Oh, I know, I know,” he said sympathetically, rocking the baby slightly in his arms, and Crowley looked past Aziraphale to the mother, who was staring at her baby with her mouth wide open. “He doesn’t like the noise of the train, poor dear, but it’s the sensation that’s really frightening him.”

“The… the sensation?” she repeated, her tone panicked. The poor girl looked anxious on her feet, reaching up and adjusting her hijab, shifting back on her heels. “It hurts? It’s hurting him?”

“No, no, not at all,” Aziraphale said soothingly, bouncing the baby a little in his arms. “He’s alright! You’ve just a great big brain in a very little body, haven’t you, dear chap? Just trying to take it all in and sort it all out, but it’s a complicated world, isn’t it? Yes, it is…” Aziraphale _beamed_ down at the infant, tapping his thumb gently against his chin, and Crowley felt himself smile, watching as Aziraphale delicately handed the baby back.

“You’re _magic_ ,” she said as she took baby Harry back, and Crowley watched her slump in relief when the boy stayed quiet, holding him up against her breast and pressing kisses against his forehead. “He’s been crying for an _hour_ , and he’s normally so quiet… Oh, thank you!”

“No problem, dear, he’s a _darling_ child. First time taking him on the train?”

“Yes,” she said. “I could feel everyone _glaring_ at me, I felt so guilty—”

“Don’t feel guilty,” Crowley said, and she looked at him, shifting the position of Harry in her arms. “Like my partner said, he’s got a very big brain, and a very small body. He can’t communicate like an older child can – if something scares him or is new or foreign, the only way he can tell you he’s uncertain is by crying. He’s not doing it to spite anybody, but you’re his mother, not his engineer. You care for him, you love him. It’s not about controlling his off switch.”

“Very nicely put,” Aziraphale murmured, with the sort of soppy smile that Crowley would normally tell him off for aiming at him, but instead he just went quiet as Aziraphale turned to smile at the young woman again. “If he starts up again, you can always come along and ask for one of us,” he said, with a wink.

She laughed, and said, softly, shyly, “Thank you. My name is Hira, what are your…?”

“My name is Ezra,” Aziraphale said. “And this here is Anthony.”

Crowley gave a wave of his fingers, and Hira smiled at them both, mumbling another thanks, before she left back into the other carriage. Crowley watched Aziraphale as he came back, this time sliding into the seat beside Crowley instead of the one across from him, and Crowley let his head drop to the angel’s shoulder.

“You’re so darling,” Aziraphale murmured.

“I’m a _beast_ ,” Crowley insisted. “I am a monstrous serpent with big fangs. And claws!”

“Hm,” Aziraphale hummed, disapprovingly, but he didn’t argue further. “Yes, perhaps. What night trains are there?”

“There’s one to Venice,” Crowley murmured as Aziraphale played with his hair, curling it over his fingers. “Or we could get the train down to Hendaye, and go onto Madrid… Or Lisbon. Or – and this is _my_ recommendation, angel – we can fly down to Nice, and get the line from Nice to Moscow.”

“Oh, to _Moscow_ ,” Aziraphale whispered, somewhat dreamily. “Do tell me all about it, my dear.”


End file.
